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sila: whoa!! that sure looks like fun! well done on participating and great job learning! hopefully you can…Hisham: Sure thing, Luke! Hope to see the birthday wish too if it’s possible.Luke: Hi, I would like to use one of ur photo to design a birthday wish for Sitiawan. I would put a credit …Hisham: Let’s just say “Canto Bight” was originally the name of some Tapani Sector noble’s pet duck.Edward: Or the city was named after the planet. Or they were both named after some forgotten dignitary. Weird…sila: glad that opah felt better though. hope she continues to feel healthy.sila: yay to a successful surgery! i hope you are recovering nicely. i’m imagining weird things with the s…Hisham: Thanks, chief. And yes I think your name is the longest we’ve ever had on here. Haha.

About

Hisham and Sila has been writing stuff down on this weblog since 2005. Sometimes they post photos of family, sometimes they talk about film, books and music, sometimes there is artwork and stuff about tabletop gaming.

Today we went to KLCC for a picnic. Irfan, as usual, went straight for the extensive playground they have there, running up and sliding down the play structures. Later, I got to do what I haven't done in a long time: spend an hour at Kinokuniya browsing and reading the first few chapters of several books, including Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Even read through the Marvel Spider-Man Encyclopedia. As usual I took a some photos, and here are some views of Irfan playing outside, and some view inside Suria KLCC.

For a sneak peek of the project currently undergoing take a look at the pop-up image to the left, which is a hint to what our primary activity will be on the main website. Once I lock down the layout of the website design itself, it will be time to work on the content. Including the conceptualizing, writing, drawing and pdfing of a whole bunch of e-books. In the meantime, more resarch on the industry (both online and offline) will also be needed on my part. More hard work ahead.

I was randomly browsing when I suddenly found this fantastic piece of digital art on the net. It led me to a digital painting program from Ambient Design Ltd. called ArtRage. It can simulate realistic brushstokes on canvas or paper, as if you were really working with oil or acrylics. And it even gives you tiny congealed globs of paint if you move the brush in a certain angle. The colours will mix realistically when different paints overlap.

Today, I tried my hand at it, using my trusty mouse in lieu of a graphics tablet, and here are the first two attempts at freehand painting, with no visual references. I'm really having fun with this and will have to practise more to refine my technique which currently sucks... the best I can with a mouse.

Shane: We usually game elsewhere, but the few times we did game here she was all about watching and chasing after dice.

Well, maybe she doesn't read them, but she sure loves to sit on them. And everyone knows cats only sit on books that has high writing and production qualities. So, here's to you Duckie! May all your d20 dice chases end up as Critical Hits.

Just a voice in one of the best animated TV series ever, Futurama. He wasn't just Philip J. Fry. He was also the voices of Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan, and even Richard Nixon. Now based on the diverse characters he brought to life with his voice in the list there, I would opine that Billy West is one of the best voice actors in the business. Earlier this week he was interviewed by The Onion, which cast some light on how Fox Network saw Futurama (which ultimately killed the show) and how movie producers treat voice actors, which is shameful. Especially the part about the Space Jam premiere party at Grauman's Chinese Theater at the end of the article.

Here is an excerpt of the interview:

The Onion: At what point did you realize Futurama wasn't going to make it?

Billy West: When they'd say, "Seven o'clock, Futurama. At 8 o'clock, The Simpsons. At 8:30, Malcolm In The Middle. Remember, it all begins at 8 on Fox!" [Laughs.] That's about the size of it. Matt [Groening] had total autonomy, pretty much. They let him do what he wanted to do, and the show was becoming a success. People were finding it, and Fox kept trying to hide it because they couldn't have control over it. How are you going to explain to the media world, "It's a success, obviously, because we had nothing to do with it. We didn't put our seal of death on it."

O: Couldn't they have said they were simply repeating the Simpsons formula—letting Groening doing his thing?

BW: No, not really, because people are pains in the ass. You know, if you created a show, and it became a huge, huge cultural phenomenon, you could have an idea for another show, and everybody would be lining up to lick your ass. Then, when you tell them what you want to do, "Okay, here's my idea: I want to do a show about people in space, you know, like in the year 3000. But they're not space, they're on Earth, and it's a delivery boy who winds up cryogenically frozen in the future." And people just look at you with that face of no breaks and a smile, going "But we want another Simpsons." You can't have another Simpsons; there already is a Simpsons!

And for the record, Fox Network was also responsible for the cancellation of the excellent genre series Firefly and Space: Above and Beyond. Hit the link above to read the entire article.

As Hisham has faithfully chronicled in here, Vin & I got married in Malaysia recently. A few days after the big kenduri (feast) in Sitiawan, Hisham's and my hometown, Vin & I flew to Kuala Terengganu, on the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia where we were picked up by a bus and driven to the Marang Jetty. There, we got on a speedboat and left for Pulau Redang (Redang Island) for a 3-day snorkeling adventure.

It took more than 10 years, but I have a new best feature length Batman movie to replace my old one.

Among the new generation of Batman movies (by new I mean, post-Adam West) I caught the first one on video, saw the second twice in the movie theater, raised my eyebrow at the third once on the big screen, and saw the spectacular train wreck that was the fourth on TV, and even then I wasn't too eager to watch it through to the end.

So I was very cautious approaching Batman Begins earlier today. And I left the theater more than 2 hours later very, very satisfied with Christopher Nolan's final product.

When I was studying overseas back in the early 90s... very early 90s... I became acquainted by snail-mail to one Mary Jo Fox who was, with her friend James Addams, the publishers of the Star Wars fanzine Blue Harvest which ran for 21 "episodes", another fine way of saying "issues". They had a plethora of articles that you can read from, such as an interview with Michael Stackpole and A New Hope Special Edition review from way back when the EU was cooling down from its initial Big Bang.

Although it ran for years, I only provided art for the fanzine in its early days, mostly for its back cover right below the "Next Episode On Blue Harvest" blurb they usually have there. Here are two of the black and white artwork that were featured in the magazines:

It was official last week, Stan! of The Games Mechanics has thrust upon me another 1.5 pages of illustrations to be done for the d20 Future Player's Companion. I'm very excited about this, and like the previous batch of work I'll do my best to give them their money's worth. To clarify: TGM will be publishing short three e-books in a series in the middle of this year. Later this year, Green Ronin will be publishing a hard copy book consisting of the three e-books. Imagine that. My science fiction artwork on actual printed pages that people will have to buy to see.

I can't wait to add these illustrations to my gallery. Hopefully I'll get consistent work from other publishers as well. Another thing I have to look out for is an efficient way to transfer funds from the publisher to me, that wouldn't be difficult to manage for both parties.

When I first joined the Holonet Forums and SWAG, I met one Daniel Falconer online. Eventually I learnt that this well-mannered, down-to-earth, and extremely talented man worked at quite a respectable place, to put it mildly. His SWAG gallery is nothing short of impressive!

Now it seems that he has discovered that there exists a fan blog on the internet dedicated to himself! Check out Daniel Falconer Forever. If anyone deserves a fan blog, it's Daniel.

Ever since I got this computer right here four years ago, the one I'm using to type in this entry, I have been developing a portfolio and sending them to companies for freelance work. An industry I have always wanted to work on is the role-playing game industry. There is a list of companies that I send my portfolio to every year, in a cycle. Most ignore my e-mails. Some like Chaosium wrote back with polite rejection letters. Very rarely, I get an e-mail asking for a quotation like the one from Final Sword Productions. But so far, I've not gotting any hits from any of the gaming companies.

Their time in Malaysia had come and gone. Vin and Sila left the country, back to their own lives in the United States last night. It had been a fantastic month, and we were all saddened by their having to leave. Irfan, on the other hand, took it well. Even after the evening claiming his Ayah Cik's luggage as his own, Irfan waved his goodbye to my sister and brother-in-law without any fuss. Even this morning, when I asked him, "Ayak Cik mana? (Where's Ayah Cik?)" Irfan cheerily replied, "Ayah Cik naik kapal terbang. (Ayah Cik got onto an aircraft.)"

For the last year or so, after sending Irfan to day care, we drive to work together. After the construction of Hilton KL Sentral, we drive past it every morning. Sometimes we wonder if we would ever get a chance to spend a night at the newest and state-of-the-art hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

Then suddenly last week, newlyweds Sila and Vin booked us on what would be a 2 night stay there. After their honeymoon in Redang we were to rendezvous with them at KL Sentral. Soon after, we were enjoying the air-conditioned, luxurious rooms of the hotel.